Hot Rods An observation about obsolete intake manifolds

...well, we did have a clue, we knew that the market would be tight for a 318P intake, our collective asses are still intact....
The original deadline (as well as the original pricing) was not pie-in-the-sky, it was based on commitments from the pattern maker, the foundry and the machining operation. So one of the players missed their date(s). What would you have done? Sue the 'bastards'? or regroup and push ahead and at least try to make up the time somewhere else?
Did we "totally miss the mark"? Think as you like but we did not design the intake to be a re-cast of old technology. The design is/was to get the max HP from a 400 inch Polysperical headed engine with certain limitations/restrictions in place. I do believe the goal has been met and exceeded.

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My take.........
Back in the day.....did the Hot Rodders buy old used parts for ungodly sums of money.....I doubt it.
If they had the money for a Hop Up rod pretty sure they spent it on new Hop Up parts, yes?
If they did buy used.......pretty sure it was cheap!

Now that the Hot Rod is back and "traditional" thrown into the mix, seems that period piece that is now deemed important for that "traditional" look well, those with the bucks are, as mentioned, willing to spend it.

Some of those long ago pieces that went out of business long ago, again as mentioned, to re pop them is a big investment for start up and you need to sell a ton of them to get your money back and then a profit.

Once more, as mentioned, there are several companies still making the back then pieces cause they never stopped making them and.....folks are still buying them.

 

There are probably a few. I have a '57 p.u. with an OHV six and I know there was a two-carb manifold for some of the heavy-duty applications where power mattered more than economy and if I could get one I probably wouldn't mind paying a few hundred for it.

 

if some of us were shooting for mass approval, our builds would look very, VERY different. I dont think I would be filling and peaking my hood, adding a 41 fuel filler door, nerfs, 15" wheels, starfire caps or god forbid, painting it metallic pink. It would be black, with all the stock trim, and 16" chrome reverses, per page 1 of the HAMB rule book. Hell, if I were aiming for maximum mass approval, I wouldn't even be doing the olds, I would be rebuilding the 59A it came with and chasing block letter edelbrocks. Some of us do what we do and hunt the parts we hunt because its right....I know the current traditional "rules" I just choose to ignore them...

 

I have bought and sold many rare intakes. As with anything vintage, some times you gotta pay to play.

 

"35 Dodge Hot Rod". You seem to have some insight into this. Do you have any idea of how Eddie Edmunds was able to do what he did? This has always made me wonder. With CAD/CAM and things like 3D printers, you would think that getting the patterns these days (which you seem to say is the big part of the expense) should be easier than it was for him. He turned out an amazing amount of stuff.

 

My question is: Even way back in the 80s, Offy was advertising it's products in car magazines so if Offy is still manufacturing speed equipment and dress up parts for old engines today, is it a repop??

 

Several years ago I asked Edelbrock if they were ever going to make any new C4B intakes. The answer was NO. I asked why? the answer was we make a much better intake . And very few people actually need that intake. Every time I find one it is butchered or has had to much machine work done to it.

 

I think the title "obsolete intake manifolds" is a clue as to why they are not being made today. Except for very specialized manufactures such as the 318 intake mentioned above. And if you want to buy a low production part, it's going to cost. Yes mold making is a smaller part of the investment today than in the past. But it is spread much thinner.

 

Damn, there wont be a Rochester 2G left on the planet.

 

Yep. My old daddy said; Boy, don't ever buy an aluminum intake used, there's a reason they are for sale. The thing I loved (and hated) about daddy's advice was that he was always right.

 

That's what drives the price up. People with no sense and less fiscal control. Must be politicians.

 

Isn't there a pill for that!

 

To simplify. It's a lot like when Elvis met Nixon. Nixon made a remark about Elvis's cape and Elvis replied; "You've got your gig to swing and I've got mine." Not verbatim but you get the drift. Live and let live. Rock on brother.

 

It is stuff that they stopped manufacturing then started again once they realized that we really like that stuff. it is made from a different alloy. So I guess it might be or might not be. The point is that the stuff tat was made from unobtainium 15 years ago is now available.

 

They NEVER stopped manufacturing it, just the market came around to meet them again. I have an offy catalog and pricelist here from 1988, that pre-dates the hamb and the "traditional hot rodding" revival as we know it on here, and it lists all the same Olds Rocket, Dodge Red-Ram and nailhead stuff it does now, probably more. Most of the guys on here were building monochromatic pastel rods in 1988, and Offenhauser was an anachronism. So the offy stuff is not "re-pop" its not "NOS" its just parts. Same parts they have always made, all the way back to the fifties.
I've done it now, the "patina" crowd will all be trying to unload their offy stuff.

 

I think that people generally overestimate the quantity that can be sold of many products that may be reproduced such as intakes and valve covers.

 

I think that is probably the case. However, I do think Weiand could sell quite a few 4x2's for 331-354 Hemis, I do think they are probably missing an opportunity there.

 

http://victorylibrary.com/mopar/edel.htm
List of obsolete Edelbrock manifolds.

My thoughts: About 7 years ago I bought a n.o.s. Edelbrock DS410 from the Bay.
I know that HOT HEADS sell a new style,but I don't like certain things about it.
I didn't buy it cuz it was,old or rare,or to be an investment or wall hanger.I would have been satisfied with a stocker,it was an opportunity that I could not pass up,
as they will never be reproduced.Side by side comparo with stock 2bbl. reveals
rearranged runners from carb. base.I don't care if it's obsolete,just don't like the new ones,it I did,that's what I would have bought and saved a few $.

 

I saw this at the Tri Cities swap meet (Kennewick wa) today. My thought was that someone on here was hunting that unit when I took the photo. No info the guy with the table said one of his buddies sat it on the table and took off.

 

http://oi63.tinypic.com/256ep0o.jpg
I painted it black,so what?

 

I am still looking for a 4-71 manifold for an SBC. Everyone with one (or four*) thinks that they are made of pure Gold.

They all seem to be listed for $2000-$2300. I am not going to pay more for the manifold than I can buy an entire 6-71 setup for, used, with a distributor and carburetors.

*Those four went to the scrapper, instead of four buyers.

 

I have told this story on the H.A.M.B. before but it's good.

Friend of mine needed a muti carb intake for 324 Olds for a customer's car.
He went to a collector who a had a wall of 303, 324 intakes.
Tom found the one he need and asked "How much?"
The man replied "Do you know what that ones worth!?"
Tom said "Yeah, nothing because there's no fuel and air going though it!"

 

Tom is a jerk.

Just because somebody has a part that is part of their collection, or too expensive for you, doesn't mean they are wrong. It just means you can't step up. Just walk away, don't need to be an asshole.

 

Back in the late seventies, I was checking out speed equipment at Pomona and was amazed at the asking prices. Offenhauser was a client and I asked him if he still had the patterns for flathead stuff. He did. He worked with his brother Carl to freshen the drill jigs and found that Victor still had the gasket dies. To the best of my knowledge, they're still cast in Southern California and machined at the shop on Alhambra Blvd.

By no stretch of the imagination, can you call Offy flathead stuff reproduction products.

At one time there was a rumor going around that when Edlebrock moved from Coral Circle that they shit-canned the original flathead patterns and that they made new ones after the market started booming.

 

This is a tough one. The best we can do is guess, but I'm inclined to believe he was a very driven, very passionate individual who knew how things worked. It is said in the early days he did quite a bit of the actual work himself. That is a huge thing, because you can't pay a person to care about something. It just doesn't work out. They either care (i.e. have passion) or they don't.

Ask yourself, who does a better job:
A guy walks in and tells a shop what he wants done.

1. A shop that has the skills and equipment to make this guys vision happen, but the shop doesn't eat breath and sleep this stuff. No passion.

2. A shop that has the skills and equipment to make this vision happen, and also can see and feel the other guys passion as well.

Now keep this in mind, passion doesn't guarantee a return on investment monetarily speaking. I don't know if he became a wealthy man from following his passion, but it's very likely he was driven more so by the achievement and satisfaction of designing and ultimately creating a real, useful thing.

Nobody could begrudge a man for following his passion and failing to make any money from it. But if one of his goals was to make money and then barely break even, that is a failure on that count.

I would wager that given the time this occurred in our country, things were booming so it would have been easier to make a living whilst also following his passion.

Technology is great, but it has become a whole new generations god. CNC machining and computer software are wonderful tools, but hardly a means to an end. So many people seem to overlook this. It still takes passion, and a well rounded skill set. Anybody with a certain level of IQ can be taught how to run a CNC and program, however not everyone has mechanical and useful hands on capability. One huge point to consider is how many people even know what a pattern maker is? It's a profession that is relevant to anything mechanical, yet there are fewer and fewer pattern makers these days. In Edmunds days, there would have been far more people capable of creating such tooling, and as such a lower cost to manufacture.

I don't hate computers, as it turns out I'm using such a tool right now to type this. Look at it this way, would you rather have a set of Boyd Coddington wheels cut out with a soul less machine, or a vintage set of wheels that had dozens of people with different skills grace their time and knowledge towards creating?

 

35 Dodge,

Thank you for your input. In the meantime, I've been doing a little research myself. I found an article (I think it was in "Popular Mechanics" from 1952) about Eddie Edmunds. At the time, he had a shop in Los Angeles where he employed about 50 people. There are two interesting points in this article. First, he did not target so-called "Hot-Rodders", but everyday car owners who wanted more performance from their vehicles. In those days, (except for a few Oldsmobiles and Cadillacs), most automobiles were powered by engines that were essentially the same as the pre-war versions; people had seen a taste of what was available, and wanted some for themselves. Second, and probably more important, his company was divided in two major parts. First of course, was the manufacturing part, but he had a second division that installed and fine-tuned his products for his customers. You could drive in in the morning with your car, and drive out in the afternoon with a new high performance version. Just think how much that expanded his potential market. Also, I think you are correct that the times were right. The economy was booming and people were getting more performance minded. He still had to be quite a guy, though.

 

Some of the interesting intakes that I have seen on true hot rods over the years (2X2 on a early Caddy OHV) are the focus of the build and the price was worth it...

 

This thread kinda goes with the thread on garages being too small. I've got three cars waiting to be built and I'm working on another one. I'm always looking for parts for the cars in waiting and can be a little more selective as to quality and price because I'm not in a rush to complete the project. If I only had one car, I would probably over pay for a certain part that I needed to get the car completed. I need another garage just to store the parts for the future builds.